“But a day of reckoning, he stated crescendo with no uncertain voice– thoroughly monopolizing all the conversation– was in store for mighty England, despite her power of pelf on account of her crimes. There would be a fall and the greatest fall in history. The Germans and the Japs were going to have their little lookin, he affirmed.” The prophecy of Japan’s rise as a great land and maritime power vis-à-vis the empires of Europe (first Russia, then presumably England at a future point) is consistent with the novel’s narrative of Western Civilization‘s exhaustion, decline and diminished potential.

This was the first major victory in the modern era of an Asian country over a Western one and a harbinger of a future series of events that would lead to decolonization.

Japan’s prestige rose greatly as it began to be considered a modern Great Power.

Concurrently, Russia lost virtually its entire Eastern and Baltic fleets and slipped in

international esteem. This was particularly true in the eyes of Germany. Russia was

France’s ally, and that loss of prestige would have a significant effect on German plans concerning a potential future war with France.

In the absence of Russian competition and with the distraction of

European nations during World War I and the Great Depression, the Japanese military began

the efforts to dominate China that would lead to the Pacific War of World War II.

In Russia, the defeat of 1905 led in the short term to a reform

of the Russian military that would allow it to face Germany in World War I. However, the

revolts at home following the war and military defeat presaged the Russian Revolution of

1917.

Russo-Japanese War: Date 1904-1905

Location: Manchuria, Yellow Sea

Result: Japanese victory

Casus belli: Desire for colonies, especially Manchuria

Combatants: Imperial Russia & Empire of Japan

Strength: 500,000 Soldiers 400,000 Soldiers

Casualties: 134,817+ KIA/POW, 170,000 MIA etc. 107,591+ total.

Russo-Japanese War

The Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905) was a conflict

that grew out of the rival imperialist ambitions of Russia and Japan in Manchuria and Korea. The major theatres of the war were Port Arthur, the Liaodong Peninsula, and along the railway line from Port Arthur to Harbin. The Russians were in constant pursuit of a warm water port. The Japanese were driven to war through a geostrategic concern to secure their interior lines by stemming Russian interest in Korea.

Origins of the war

In the late 19th century and early 20th century, various Western countries were

competing for influence, trade, and territory in East Asia while Japan strove to transform

herself into a modern great power. Great power status at the time depended in part on

access to colonies which could provide raw materials. Securing colonies in turn depended

on naval power, which required bases for the increasingly large battleships of the era,

and a chain of coal stations for warships to restock the fuel for their boilers.

The Japanese government recognized Korea as the lifeline of Japan, since Korea is

geopolitically close to Japan. Also, in 13th century, Japan was attacked by the Yuan

dynasty of Mongolia, which passed through the Korean peninsula. Korea was traditionally

subordinated to China. At first, the Japanese government wished to part Korea from China,

form Korea into an independent country, and then try to make an alliance with an

independent Korea. However, this did not work, since China strongly stated their

sovereignty over Korea.

There were several conflicts, which finally evolved into the Sino-Japanese War. Japan’s

subsequent defeat of China led to the Treaty of Shimonoseki (17 April 1895), under which

China abandoned its own suzerainty over Korea and ceded Taiwan and Lüshunkou (often

called Port Arthur) to Japan. However, three Western powers (Russia, the German Empire and

the French Third Republic), by the Triple Intervention of 23 April 1895 applied pressure

on Japan to relinquish Port Arthur. The Russians later (in 1898) negotiated a 25-year

lease of the naval base with China, and sent soldiers to occupy it. Meanwhile, Japanese

forces were trying to take over Korea, which had a protection pact with Russia. Russian

forces consequently occupied most of Manchuria and the northern parts of Korea.

Hirobumi Ito started to negotiate with Russia. He decided that Japan was too weak to

evict Russia militarily, so he proposed giving Russia control over Manchuria in exchange

for Japanese control of northern Korea. Instead, Japan and the United Kingdom made an

alliance in 1902, the British aiming to prevent a southward Russian advance.

After failing to negotiate a favorable agreement with Russia, Japan sent an ultimatum

on 31 December 1903 and severed diplomatic relations on 6 February 1904. Three hours prior

to the ultimatum being received by the Russian Government, Japan attacked the Russian Navy

at Port Arthur. Both sides issued a declaration of war on 10 February. Under international

law, Japan’s attack was not considered a surprise attack, because of the ultimatum.

However, after Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, the 1904 attack on Port Arthur was

frequently cited in retrospect to substantiate an alleged Japanese penchant for surprise

attacks.

War

Campaign of 1904

Admiral Togo at the age of 58, at the time of the Russo-Japanese

War.Port Arthur, on the Liaodong Peninsula in the south of Manchuria, had been fortified

into a major naval base by the Russians. Since it needed to control the sea in order to

fight a war on the Asian mainland, Japan’s first military objective was to neutralize the

Russian fleet at Port Arthur. On the night of 8

February 1904, the Japanese fleet under Admiral Heihachiro Togo opened the war with a

surprise torpedo attack on the Russian ships at Port Arthur and badly damaged two

battleships. These attacks developed into the Battle of Port Arthur the next morning. A

series of indecisive naval engagements followed, in which the Admiral Togo was unable to

attack the Russian fleet successfully as it was protected by the land guns of the harbor

and the Russians declined to leave the harbor for the open seas, especially after the

death of Admiral Stepan Osipovich Makarov on 13 April.

However, these engagements provided cover for a Japanese landing near Incheon in Korea.

From Incheon the Japanese occupied Seoul and then the rest of Korea. By the end of April,

the Japanese army under Kuroki Itei was ready to cross the Yalu river into

Russian-occupied Manchuria.

In counterpoint to the Japanese strategy of gaining rapid victories to control

Manchuria, Russian strategy focused on fighting delaying actions to gain time for

reinforcements to arrive via the long Trans-Siberian railway. On 1 May 1904, the Battle of

the Yalu River, in which Japanese troops stormed a Russian position after an unopposed

crossing of the river, was the first major land battle of the war. Japanese troops

proceeded to land at several points on the Manchurian coast, and, in a series of

engagements, drove the Russians back on Port Arthur. These battles, including the Battle

of Nanshan on 25 May, were marked by heavy Japanese losses from attacking entrenched

Russian positions, but the Russians remained passive and failed to counterattack.

At sea, the war was just as brutal. After the 8 February attack on Port Arthur, the

Japanese attempted to deny the Russians use of the port. During the night of 13-14

February, the Japanese attempted to block the entrance to Port Arthur by sinking several

cement-filled steamers in the deep water channel to the port, but they sank too deep to be

effective. Another attempt to block the harbor entrance during the night of 3-4 May with

blockships also failed. In March, the energetic Vice Admiral Makarov had taken command of

the First Russian Pacific Squadron with the intention of breaking out of the Port Arthur

blockade.

By then, both sides were engaged in a tactical offensive, laying mines in each other’s

ports. This was the first time that mines were used for offensive purposes; in the past,

mines had been used for purely defensive purposes to protect harbors against potential

invaders. The Japanese mine-laying policy proved effective at restricting the movement of

Russian ships outside Port Arthur, when on 12 April 1904 two Russian battleships, the

flagship Petropavlovsk and the Pobeda, struck Japanese mines off Port Arthur. The

Petropavlosk sank within an hour, while the Pobeda had to be towed back to Port Arthur for

extensive repairs. Admiral Makarov died on the Petropavlovsk by choosing to go down with

his ship.

The Russians soon copied the Japanese policy of offensive minelaying. On 15 May 1904,

two Japanese battleships, the Yashima and the Hatsuse, were lured into a recently laid

Russian minefield off Port Arthur, each striking at least two mines. The Yashima sank

within minutes, taking 450 sailors with her, while the Hatsuse sank under tow a few hours

later. On 23 June, a breakout attempt by the Russian squadron, now under the command of

Admiral Wilgelm Vitgeft failed. By the end of the month, Japanese artillery were firing

shells into the harbor.

Russian 500 pound shell bursting near the Japanese siege guns, near Port ArthurJapan

began a long siege of Port Arthur, which had been heavily fortified by the Russians. On 10

August 1904, the Russian fleet attempted to break out and proceed to Vladivostok, but they

were intercepted and defeated at the Battle of the Yellow Sea. The remnants of the Russian

fleet remained in Port Arthur, where they were eventually sunk by the artillery of the

besieging army. Attempts to relieve the city by land also failed, and, after the Battle of

Liaoyang in late August, the Russians retreated to Mukden (Shenyang). Port Arthur finally

fell on 2 January 1905, after a series of brutal, high-casualty assaults.

Campaign of 1905

The Japanese army was now able to attack northward. To finish the

war, Japan needed to crush the Russian army in Manchuria. The Battle of Mukden commenced

at the end of February. Japanese forces progressed step by step and tried to encircle

General Kuropatkin’s headquarters at Mukden (Shenyang). Russian forces resisted, but on 10

March 1905 they decided to retreat. Having suffered massive casualties, the Japanese did

not pursue the Russians. Because the possession of the city meant little strategically, a

final victory would depend on the navy.

Mikasa, possibly the most powerful battleship of

her time, was the Japanese flagship at the Battle of Tsushima in 1905.

Meanwhile, at sea, the Russians were preparing to reinforce their fleet by sending the

Baltic Sea fleet under Admiral Zinovi Petrovich Rozhdestvenski around the Cape of Good

Hope to Asia. On 21 October 1904, while passing by the United Kingdom (an ally of Japan

but neutral in this war), they nearly provoked a war in the Dogger Bank incident by firing

on British fishing boats that they mistook for torpedo boats.

The long duration of its journey meant that Admiral Togo was well aware of the Baltic

Fleet’s progress, and he made plans to meet it before it could reach Vladivostok. He

intercepted it in the Tsushima Strait between Korea and Japan, and in the Battle of

Tsushima, 27 May–28 May 1905, the Japanese fleet, numerically inferior but with

1904-1905 Siege of Port Arthur, August 19 to January 2: Japan defeats Russia

1904 Battle of Liaoyang, August 25 to September 3: Inconclusive

1904 Battle of Shaho, October 5 to October 17: Inconclusive

1905 Battle of Sandepu, January 26 to January 27: Inconclusive

1905 Battle of Mukden, February 21 to March 10: Japan defeats Russia

1905 Battle of Tsushima, May 27 to 28 May naval

battle: Japan defeats Russia

The Russo-Japanese War in art and literature

Russo-Japanese War was covered by dozens of foreign journalists who sent back sketches that were turned into lithographs and other reproducibleforms. Propaganda images were circulated by both sides and quite a few photographs have

been preserved.

The Russo-Japanese War is occasionally alluded to in

James Joyce‘ novel, Ulysses. In the “Eumaeus” chapter, a drunken sailor in a bar proclaims,

“But a day of reckoning, he stated crescendo with no uncertain voice– thoroughly monopolizing all the conversation– was in store for mighty England, despite her power of pelf on account of her crimes. There would be a fall and the greatest fall in history. The Germans and the Japs were going to have their little lookin, he affirmed.”

The prophecy of Japan’s rise as a great land and maritime power vis-à-vis the empires of Europe (first Russia, then presumably England at a future point) is consistent with the novel’s narrative of Western Civilization‘s exhaustion, decline and diminished potential.

Alexei Silych Novikov-Priboy, a sailor on the Russian battleship “Oryol”, wrote an epic documental novel about the journey of the Russian Baltic fleet and battle of Tsushima. It was first published in 1930 in Soviet Union under the name “Tsusima”.

Book by Constantine Pleshakov The Tsar’s Last Armada: The Epic Voyage to the Battle of Tsushima, publisher “Basic Books” 2003. ISBN 0-465-05792-6